[MCCSC] Monroe County
Community School Corporation
315 E North Drive . Bloomington, IN 47401 . USA . 812.330.7700
www.MCCSC.edu

Offices of
Curriculum / Assessment /Instruction
and
Information Services

 
The focus of computers in education should be on accomplishing the traditional mission in a course, not primarily teaching computer skill.
-- Chuck Bartosch, CEO and president of Clarity Connect

Ins and Outs of Electronic Mail
  Ins and Outs of Electronic Mail
Overview of OWA
   Living with Dependency
   Learning to Think First and Send Later
   Listservs and/or Maillists and Bcc:
Using E-Mail for School-Home Contacts: A positive communications tool but not a confidential or secure substitute for person-to-person conferences.
   Online Projects
   Teacher-to-Teacher
   Student-to-Student
SPAM and Other Unwanted Mail:
Suggestions and instructions for handling and sometimes avoiding SPAM [mass mail, junk mail] and other unwanted mail.
Viruses & Internet Hoaxes & Myths
If you get a notice about a virus, a real one will have a URL for a site where you can check for authenticity BEFORE you mail the warning to your people. You can also check for information at one of these locations.
Back to the Top
The MCCSC Learning Network subscribes to Policy and Guidelines 2521 of the Monroe County Community School Corporation. Links contained on these pages to information or other organizations are presented as a service and neither constitute nor imply endorsement or warranty. © 1998 MCCSC. Last update: 22 January 2004.  

Living with Dependency

 There are worse things to be dependent upon, but depending upon e-mail for all communications does have some drawbacks.
  1. Not everyone you need to communicate with has e-mail.
  2. Not everyone who has access to e-mail uses e-mail.
  3. Not everyone who uses e-mail uses e-mail regularly.
  4. E-mail messages do get "crossed."
  5. E-mail messages are sometimes delayed up to 5 days.
On the other hand, if you remember to paper-mail copies to "not everyone" people, irregular users might get the idea that e-mail is convenient and timely, and nonusers might get curious about what they're missing. E-mail does have some distinct advantages over other media, which makes "crossed" and "delayed" easier to live with.
  1. E-mail is not intrusive. E-mail communication does not interupt face-to-face conversations or signal call-waiting during telephone conversations.
  2. E-mail is timely. E-mail is generally delivered to the receiver's in-box within minutes. A user who checks e-mail once or twice a working day will be reading the message within 24 hours or, at the most, after the weekend.
  3. E-mail is schedule-friendly. The priority flag, the sender's name, and the subject of the message help you decide what you're going to read, when you'll read it, or even if you'll read it. There is e-mail "junk mail." Develop a pattern of checking your in-box for "N" (new) messages, look at the flags, the senders, and the subjects, and establish a priority. Later in the day, you can deal with the others (as well as any that have come in since you last checked).
  4. E-mail "always" gets there. It is nearly impossible to trace a telephone message. "Did the student get my name and number? Did anyone bother to deliver the message? Is he checking his voice mail?" There is an e-mail version of "telephone tag." It's called "crossed messages":
    • John -- Let's have lunch Thursday at La Torre.
    • Mary -- I'll be there at 1:00 PM.
    • John -- Ooops, forgot to tell you. Let's meet at noon.
    • Mary -- Okay, I can be there at noon.
    • John -- I'll be there at 1:00.
    When messages are lost or delayed, there is usually a message from the "post master" or something called the "Mail Daemon" describing the problem. Most of the time, there's a problem with the userid or the address. Sometimes the system is down. In those cases, the mailer keeps trying for about 5 days. But 99% of the time, you are informed.
  5. E-mail is "list friendly." It's easy and convenient to set up an "Address Book" list, copying a single message to multiple recipients. Some systems also have "listserv" or "maillist" capability for internal and external groups.
Back to the Top

Learn to Think First

MCCSC e-mail is a corporate resource. The primary purpose is administrative communication. The highest priority has to be assigned to those messages directly related to the employee's assignment: administration, classroom instruction, instructional support, school-home-student relationships, inter-departmental activities in support of people and facilities.

In order to encourage the use of e-mail, MCCSC currently has no restriction on the use of the resource for personal or family purposes -- although common sense would dictate that overloading the system with non-business communications would quickly result in a more restrictive policy. Be judicious. Know [No!] Your Audience.

What might not be a good idea?

  • Messages violating MCCSC Board of Education policies or Office of the Superintendent guidelines.
  • Messages possibly crossing the cloudy line sometimes described as "separation of church and state."
  • Messages primarily supporting political positions.
  • Messages stretching the boundaries of taste.
  • Additionally, do not send unsolicited messages to other MCCSC employees or to others which are not primarily and directly related to job function.
Be quick to remove e-mail addresses if requested. In general, MCCSC e-mail is not a resource to share unsolicited jokes, recipes, relatives' or pets' pictures or pictures of relatives' pets.

The very speed and convenience of e-mail sometimes causes us to forget to think.

  • Mary -- Missed you at the meeting.
  • John -- They're a waste of time.
  • Mary -- The principal told us about the new classes.
  • John -- Rats! That incompetent fool decides to tell us something important the one meeting I miss.
"That incompetent fool" could well be standing right behind Mary when that message is opened.

What was a simple, thoughtless comment could also easily be forwarded to everyone in the school, to brothers, aunts, and uncles in Dubuque, and even printed out and posted in the mail room.

E-mail is not private.

E-mail should be as well-crafted as any other written communication. Develop a sense of style related to purpose. Learn to use, but not overuse the "copy message" features of "Reply."
Back to the Top

Teacher-to-Teacher Collaboration
Back to the Top

Student-to-Student Communication
Back to the Top

Listservs, Maillists and Bcc:

Joining a list:

The terms Listserv, Maillist, and Majordomo are among a family of specific applications which have been described generically as mailing lists. Each of these represents a specific software package which is installed on an Internet-e-mail server to facilitate the creation of "bulk" e-mail. Each behaves in a slightly different manner, but generally each will allow a list owner or sponsor to create a specific purpose mailing list.

Features:

  • General e-mail is one-to-one.
  • An Address Book in general e-mail...
    • is one (the sender) -to-one
    • or -to-many (the recipients)
      -- in both "send" and "reply."
  • Mail list e-mail is always ...
    • one-to-many (the members of the list) in "send"
    • and one-to-many or one-to-one in "reply."

The major differences between Address Book and Maillists is in the headers.

  • Address Book lists ...
    • addresses placed in To: or Cc: show ALL addressees in the header so that "replies" can be sent to all recipients or just to the sender,
    • addresses placed in Bcc: (Blind Carbon/Computer Copy) are NOT displayed in the header and a "reply" goes only to the sender, not to the list.
  • Maillist recipients' addresses are not ever displayed, but "replies" may go either
    • to all members of the list
    • or only to the sender.
      Always make note of the From: and Reply to: addresses in the headers of "list" mail. They are not always consistently From: = sender or Reply to: = the list. Double check before selecting your "Reply" option.

Joining a Listserv / Maillist / Majordomo

Joining a mail list is called "subscribing." This should not be confused with newspaper or magazine "subscriptions" which have a cost. Unless clearly specified as a "For fee service," mailist "subscriptions" have no costs associated -- other than the volume of mail some generate.

Generally, you send the following message:

To: listserv@someplace.edu
Cc:
Attachment(s):
Subject:
-----message text-----
subscribe name-of-list Your Name
end
Do not fill in any of the header lines except To:, and do not include any other message text. If you have an automated signature file, be sure to delete it before sending the message. However, the end line above should signal the subscribing computer to ignore all that might follow.

You will receive confirmation and instructions back from the automated mailer that handles the list. Save a copy of these instructions in a name-of-list folder or in a general folder called lists. This information will come in very handy. Mail lists generally have three different addresses:

  1. one is the machine which handles subscriptions
  2. one is the owner or manager of the list -- a real person
  3. and one is the list itself -- where you send and receive messages.
Do not send list commands -- such as unsubscibe -- to the list; send them to the machine which handles the list. A list of possible commands -- such as postpone, or unsubscribe, or digest, or help -- is in that first message you received from the mail list machine.

Mail list e-mail can build up very quickly. If you find yourself unable to clear out your INBOX at least once a week, it might be a good idea to take yourself off the list or to suspend your membership while on vacation.

Back to the Top

Using E-Mail for School-Home Contacts

Our MCCSC e-mail addresses are a matter of public record and, as an MCCSC resource, are part of the potential student-teacher-school-home communications chain.

It's a wonderful way to send a weekly or monthly newsletter. Gather e-mail addressses and share yours with your parents. But be aware that you may need to "snail mail" [Net-Speak for US Postal Service] to those without e-mail connectivity.

On the other hand, e-mail is neither confidential nor secure. Be very reluctant and judicious about what is communicated.

As parent or guardian, use e-mail to establish contact and/or to set up appointments.

    I am student's parent/guardian. I would like to set up an appointment to talk about his/her assignments....

If you are contacted by someone purporting to be the parent or guardian (or purporting to be your student's teacher or principal), requesting information about a student, an appropriate e-mail response might be:

    Thank you for your interest in student. I would prefer to discuss this in person. My preparation period is from 0:00-0:55 every day. Or, if this is not convenient, please call me at 330-77xx, ext. wxyz, so that we can arrange an appointment.
If you have the parent/guardian's e-mail address and wish to discuss student with him/her, an appropriate message might be:
    Thank you for sharing your e-mail address with me. I would like to make an appointment to discuss your student. Could you call me at 330-77xx, ext. wxyz, so that we can arrange an appointment?
If necessary, you might need to help the parent/guardian understand that you are dealing with confidential information:
  1. e-mail is neither confidential nor secure, and
  2. there is no way to be absolutely sure that your messages are being sent by you nor that their messages are being sent by them.
Back to the Top

SPAM and Other Unwanted Mail

All of us will get mail from people we don't know. Some of it is legitimate. Some of it is useful. Some of it is quite bothersome. Some of it appears to be in violation of the MCCSC Acceptable Use Policy/Agreement.

SPAM is "Net-Speak" for junk e-mail or mass e-mailings. Every once in awhile you will get a mass mailing from an educational site -- a teacher in New Mexico, a software company in Florida, or a university in Bloomington. These might be useful.

Often you will get mass mailings offering you thousands of dollars just to sit at home and surf the Internet, a chance to "make millions in your spare time." "THIS WORKS!" it SHOUTS!

And sometimes you will just get strange mail (apparently from a "real" person -- as opposed to a SPAM-ming ro-BOT). "Strange" could relate to the content of the message or the identity of the sender.

General Do Nots:

  1. Do not reply. Do not reply, even if the mail suggests that you can be removed from the maillist by notifying them that you don't want to receive any more mail from them. Do not reply to anonymous unsolicited messages, or other harassing or offensive mail. By responding, you only confirm that you are a person with an active e-mail address who can be plagued with constant unwanted e-mail solicitations.

  2. Do not delete. If the mail is offensive, threatening, or of questionable taste -- do not delete the message. E-Mail detectives can discover information "hidden" in the headers of messages that can reveal all of the servers and machines that had any contact with the message. Do not delete this type of message. The sender is the violator. You are NOT IN VIOLATION by keeping the message [More on this later.].
Specific Dos:

  1. Do ignore and delete any annoying, bothersome, SPAM-mail that approximates the kind of junk mail you might receive in US Postal mail at home. There is of yet no legislation that will allow you to notify a SPAMmer to cease and desist in the way that you can stop unwanted telephone solicitations.

  2. Do be judicious about where you leave your e-mail address. Ever notice how much your postal junk mail increases after you register for a "Free Car?" E-mail SPAM sometimes uses web registrations the same way. Do sign up for a free e-mail account from Hotmail, Mail, EMail, MSN, etc., and use that address for web give-aways, contests, etc. See if the SPAM doesn't get sent there instead of to mccsc.edu.

  3. Do save any harrassing, threatening, or pornographic e-mail. Save it to a new folder called "Threats" (or something). Do notify your building administration (if this is occurring on MCCSC resources) that you have received such messages and have saved them. If you believe the messages to be dangerous,

    do immediately notify law enforcement. Follow their instructions concerning the message(s). These instructions usually involve "showing all header information." See instructions in your mail program.

  4. Do reply to any mail which appears to offer a legitimate communications need. This is a judgement call on your part. 90% of SPAM should be ignored and deleted. If the message contains open, traceable information -- such as a WWW address, a mailing address and telephone number, check into the legitimacy of the message. Respond accordingly.

  5. Do notify any "innocent" but bothersome senders, politely, that you have no idea who she/he is, request that he/she immediately stop communicating with you, that she/he even not reply to the request, that you have not appreciated his/her previous messages containing off color and tasteless remarks, and inform him that you will notify her/his e-mail provider if he/she continues to communicate with you. The bad news is that this person probably doesn't understand that his contact with you is not welcome.

  6. Do, if bothersome e-mail continues, notify the Internet Service Provider or e-mail provider by forwarding the previous message. The ISP or e-mail provider is that part after the @ sign in the e-mail address:
    • czager@hotmail.com
    • czager@indiana.edu
    • czager@bloomington.in.us, for example.
    Forward (not copy) the message to
    • abuse@hotmail.com
    • abuse@indiana.edu
    • abuse@bloomington.in.us, for example.
    "Set show all headers," and copy the message to the sender (and to your building administrator, if this is on MCCSC resources).
Back to the Top
Virus Threats: Hoaxes and Myths:
 There are more and more e-mail warnings about new Internet viruses and lots of warnings about terror attacks and admonitions to stay away from shopping centers. How does one know what to believe? How does one know how to respond?

Danger to life is quite different than danger to a home computer. But danger to a network of computers or to the international world wide web of computers and servers could be damaging to the lives and livlihood of millions -- not to mention the potential lock-up of emergency and defense systems.

Unfortunately, many of the e-mail warnings serve to do more damage to those systems than the threats and viruses that they signal. For example, "Send this message to everyone that you know," is a pyramid scheme designed to clog up as much available bandwidth as possible. Just delete those messages and move on. Don't reply to them, or, if it is from a friend, make sure the reply only goes to the sender, not the whole list.

One must develop a sense of perspective. Actual terror activities are more likely to be communicated by official Emergency Management or Homeland Security sources through media other than the Internet. And actual virus warnings are more likely to come from your network administrator or from your anti-virus software.

Most of these e-mail alarms turn out to be hoaxes or urban legends -- stories that have a very long life on the Internet. To check whether the latest story you hear is true, check out the Urban Legends Reference Page at http://www.snopes.com. This page does contain advertising and links to material that will be screened by the MCCSC WebSense filter.

Computer Virus Threats:
If you get a notice about a virus, a real warning one will have a URL for a site where you can check for authenticity BEFORE you mail the warning to your people. You can also check for information at one of these locations:
Virus Hoaxes:
There are a few clues to hoaxes and myths:

Generally, a hoax/myth ...

  1. References a news release "yesterday" or "this morning" with no comparison date;
  2. Grabs "authority" by using a known technology name, usually large enough that if you try to track the news back to a website, YOU feel inadequate if you don't find any reference to the information (common ones are IBM, AOL, Microsoft);
  3. Assigns the virus to e-mail with no explanation that e-mail, itself, cannot be infected -- only attachments and macros -- thereby lumping all e-mail clients into the GUI (POP3 and IMAP) category;
  4. Begs you to spread the information to EVERYONE you know and even people you don't know -- THIS IS ACTUALLY THE "VIRUS," sometimes called an "e bomb," or e-mail "bomb," meaning its intent is to clog up the system with . . .;
  5. . . . warnings of dire consequences; and
  6. Seems to use the same language and same format (only the names have been changed to protect the innocent) as the last warning you received.
Unfortunately, some enterprising hooligans are starting to develop a new template which mirrors real news releases, so ...
  1. Practice SAFE E-MAILING:
    1. If you use a POP3/IMAP GUI client, do not set it to open attachments automatically -- this can be configured in the Options, Tools/Options, Preferences choices -- rather, save and virus scan ALL attachments, even those you get from your closest friends and relatives;
      and
    2. if you use a file "unzip" utility, do not set it to automatically open "zipped" [*.zip] files or documents -- always set these utilities to "ask" first.
    3. If you use a UNIX/Linux text client like Mail or Pine, save all attachments and scan them after you FTP to your local machine and BEFORE you open or execute.
    4. MS Office applications (Word, Excel, etc.), are designed to protect you from macro viruses including the "Melissa" and "Papa" viruses and any variants, provided the macro virus protection in these applications is turned on (which is the default setting). With the macro virus protection turned on, every time you open a document that contains macros, a dialog box appears and asks you to choose whether to enable or disable included macros.

      You should always disable macros when you are not certain of their purpose or functionality. By choosing to disable the macros, you will prevent any macro viruses from running, preventing infection by the virus. The virus is only activated if you open the attached document and choose to enable the macros or if your macro virus protection settings have been previously turned off and you open the attachment.

      It should be noted that even if the message containing the virus is not opened, it could still infect others if it is forwarded. To minimize risk and to prevent spreading a virus, if your virus scan reveals a virus, you should delete it without opening the attachment, and, if you have FTP'ed the file, you should return to Pine and delete the original message.

      How do I ensure the Office macro virus protection is turned on?

      In Word 97 and Excel 97 ...

      On the Tools menu, select Options.
      On the General tab, Macro Virus Protection
      should be checked or selected.
      In Word 2000 and Excel 2000 ...
      On the Tools menu, select Macro and then choose Security.
      Select the level of security you want. High security will allow only macros that have been signed to open. Unsigned macros will be automatically disabled. Medium security always brings up the macro dialog protection box that allows you to disable macros if you are unsure of the macros.
      IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are not able to follow the steps above because you cannot find the menu items, you may already be infected. If so, run anti-virus software containing the latest update, and scan your system often.

      MCCSC NT Workstations automatically scan for viruses on logon, and scan once again during the day, using Symantec -- Norton Anti-Virus software. To manually check your workstation hard drive and/or a floppy disk, select Start / Programs / Norton Anti-Virus / Norton Anti-Virus and choose the options All floppy drives to check a disk and/or All hard drives and follow the instructions.

      If you are not able to run anti-virus software, it will be necessary to delete or rename your normal.dot file. This is Word's global template that will automatically be recreated once Word is launched. [On MCCSC NT Workstations, report the problem to your coordinator as this file may not be accessible to all users.] After this is done, repeat the steps in the Macro instructions above.

  2. If you get a notice about a virus, a real one will have a URL for a site where you can check for authenticity BEFORE you mail the warning to your people. You can also check for information at one of these locations.:

Q's, A's and E-Mail Comments

Your e-mail questions and comments will be published here (anonymously, if you wish), along with answers from the Webmaster or other users.
Back to the Top

Emulation Instructions

This process is also available to you, if you can connect to Monon from a friend's or colleague's computer using another telnet client. Once connected, you need to Q-Quit Pine to the 
[username@monon username]$
prompt. Display the hidden files by typing 
ls -al
or 
ls -al | more
(to invoke the screen "pause" function). You will notice a number of files preceded by a <dot>
  • .addressbook
  • .bash_history
  • .bash_logout
  • .bash_profile
  • .bashrc
Edit the .bash_profile file by typing at the prompt 
pico .bash_profile
The following screen will appear. You are in a "text editor" called Pico and can manipulate the "insertion point" and other functions exactly as you do in Pine. 
# .bash_profile

# Get the aliases and functions
if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
        . ~/.bashrc
fi

# User specific environment and startup programs

PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin
ENV=$HOME/.bashrc
USERNAME=""

export USERNAME ENV PATH

pine
You will need to insert a new line. Type 
TERM=vt100 [lowercase "vt" / no space or hyphen]
above the line PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin, below the line USERNAME="", or anywhere in that sequence of lines, and you will need to insert the word 
TERM
after the word PATH in the line 
export USERNAME ENV PATH
Your new .bash_profile file will look like this: 
# .bash_profile

# Get the aliases and functions
if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
        . ~/.bashrc
fi

# User specific environment and startup programs

TERM=vt100
PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin
ENV=$HOME/.bashrc
USERNAME=""

export USERNAME ENV PATH TERM

pine
Use Pico's command line to either 
Ctrl-O - Write out (without exiting)
or 
Ctrl-X - Write out and exit)
Accept the defaults to save as .bash_profile.

Now, return to your system and telnet to Monon. [Select here to return to "Getting MCCSC E-Mail at Home"]

Back to the Top
The MCCSC Learning Network subscribes to Policy and Guidelines 2521 of the Monroe County Community School Corporation. Links contained on these pages to information or other organizations are presented as a service and neither constitute nor imply endorsement or warranty. © 1998 MCCSC. Last update: 22 January 2004.